eWeek.com found to be hosting malicious ads
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The online version of a business computing magazine was found to be serving malicious advertisements (malvertisements) to users who visited the site's homepage.
This afternoon, a security organization issued an alert about eWeek.com and a malvertisement hosted on the DoubleClick advertising network, which performs a redirect to a malicious website through a series of iframes.
The redirect does one of two things: serves a PDF document containing exploit code or the file index.php redirects to the rogue ad-server.
Users who visit eWeek.com's homepage reportedly do not have to interact with advertisement for a file named winratit.exe to be installed onto the user's temporary files folder. Two additional files are also dropped onto the user's machine.
If a user attempts to fix their infected machine by visiting popular software download sites, the user is instead directed to a malicious website offering rogue AV downloads.
The name of the AV download associated with this cyberattack is reportedly Anti-Virus-1. Once the program is registered, it makes a connection with the malicious site to collect payment details from the user as a form of identity theft.
eWeek.com is reportedly working on fixing the problem.
Related News:
Password security a tall order for many web users - 1.22.2010
A recently released study from tech researcher Imperva showed that the most popular password among users whose accounts were compromised in the recent RockYou data breach was as follows: 123456.
Facebook fixes "wrong friends list" mobile network security glitch - 1.22.2010
CNET reports that social media network Facebook has repaired a problem in the mobile version of its service that caused some mobile users to have full access to the friends lists of unassociated users.
Automated phishing scam hits bank customers - 1.14.2010
Phishing attacks do not target victims exclusively via email, experts say, pointing to a recent rash of automated phone calls that attempted to convince victims to give up sensitive banking information.
Scammers ride aftershocks of Haiti catastrophe - 1.14.2010
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued a warning to those who want to contribute to earthquake relief efforts in Haiti, saying that cyber criminals and other types of scam artists are trying to take advantage of an outpouring of humanitarian support.
Banking Trojans finding new vector with fake Outlook alerts - 1.11.2010
A spurious alert purporting to come from Microsoft Outlook has cropped up in recent weeks, according to a maker of email filtering software.
|
